ASIA

Research conducted by Radioplayer shows that people still do want radio in their cars.81% of car purchasers said they would not buy a car without a radio.Despite the high recognition in cars, radio will have to keep up with the media offering from smartphones to maintain its relevance in the car. Nick Piggott from RadioDNS and Yaan Legarson from Radioplayer explored the strategies for keeping radio relevant in the car and on other digital platforms.We start from a position of strength, but what is the threat? asked Nick Piggott.“The threat is that the radio experience has just a little basic information in comparison to the multimedia offering from connected devices, which offers much richer content to the people in a car.“Once the car is connected to the internet and your dashboard looks like all your phone, then radio is at a disadvantage unless we can improve our offering,” said Yaan Legarson. In a disconnected vehicle the experience for radio is the same as the experience for anything else, such as the CD player, but once a car is connected the experience is enhanced.“We cannot allow radio in the car to look worse than Spotify, which can display album name, artist info, song playing and cover art. If we don’t do that, we look terrible compared with the richer offering from Spotify or other services. Radio can seem very old fashioned in comparison,” said Legarson.Nick Piggott made the point that the worldwide automotive industry needs to hear that the whole radio industry is committed to the one solution. The automotive industry IS interested in working with radio, but wants the radio industry “to take the lead to show that we are serious about integrating radio into the car.” […]

Radio presenter and podcaster Lisa Leong told the story of how she disrupted herself by changing career from an intellectual property lawyer to a radio announcer during an opening session at day two of Radiodays Asia.From that experience she developed some life lessons which she now shares with businesses to help them improve their staff interaction and energise their teams.An ‘Open Will, Open Mind and Open Heart’ are Lisa’s three key principlesWhen trying to get a job in radio, Lisa sent “hundreds of demo tapes and got dozens of rejection letters,” but one day she faced her fears and cold called the program director for Liberty Radio when he was on air one weekend.“The risk of doing nothing was the bigger than the risk of doing something.” If Lisa wanted to achieve her goal she had to disrupt herself.The PD answered the door and eventually put Lisa on the radio presenting 80s hits on the weekend. “That was 20 years ago, I now present a weekend show on ABC Radio Melbourne and a podcast called This Working Life,” she told delegates.In these disrupted times, we need to disrupt ourselves to reset goals and move out of fear mode to a new level of success.“If we go into fear mode, that won’t help in difficult times,” she said.She identified three key areas for change to help teams move forward:Fear of Failure:Ask yourself, what can go wrong if I fail? In most circumstances the fear of failure causes people not to try, to go back into their shell, but if you can laugh at the failures, learn from them and understand that they are usually not as serious as you think they are then you will move past the fear of failure.She did an exercise that generated laughter at failure, rather than fear. You can celebrate and learn from it, rather than fear failure when you feel psychologically safe, so help your teams to not be afraid of failing. It is up to team leaders to model this behaviour of not fearing failure so that staff will learn from what they do.Open Mind:Lisa used the metaphor of an ‘intellectual piranha’ who eats ideas and prevents them from being achieved. In an open mind exercise she took delegates from using blocking phrases such as ‘yes but…’ to open phrases such as ‘yes and…’ that can expand the ideas in a discussion rather than block them.Lead with Love:She urged teams to discover common ground, common hopes and dreams, and build empathy in the team. This is something that radio does well because it builds empathy.“Empathy is the super power of radio, we use it every day to connect with our audience… Be empathetic to others you work with and also be empathetic for yourself,” she said. […]

Today, around 4PM KL time, we will reveal the top two People’s Choice winners of The Radioinfo Podcast Asia Awards as they are announced, live on stage, from the Royal Chulan Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during Podcast Day Asia which is part of Radiodays Asia.Will the two People Choice Awards be the same as the Awards chosen by the judges or will they be different? Joining us on on stage, will be representatives of the top two winners of the Radioinfo Asia Podcast Awards  ads chosen by our judging panel: Shoko Plambeck, producer of “The Evaporated”, Campside Media, Japan, and Tan Li Yi, producer of “The Reading Room”, SPH Singapore. […]

Khairy bin Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, often referred to as “KJ“, is a former three-time Malaysian Minister turned radio presenter and podcaster.Together with Johan, Fara Fauzana and AG, he fronts Hot FM’s breakfast show, Bekpes Hot.The offer to Khairy to host the show was made in an open letter on Instagram by Hot FM, according to a statement from Hot FM owner Media Prima Audio.He also hosts Keluar Sekejap with Shahril Hamdan, a podcast in which they discuss Malaysian politics and current affairs with a variety of guests.Khairy is also one of the Members of the Board and Youth Advisor at JDT, as well as a Visiting Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.He most recently served as Minister of Health in the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration under former Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob from August 2021 to November 2022.He will host a session titled KJ – A Malaysian pod success on Wednesday, September 6, at Radiodays Asia 2023 where he will speak about his unusual journey from politics to radio. […]

One of ABC Australia’s longest running successes is now also one of the most downloaded podcasts in the country.When the host, Richard Fidler, proposed the one hour interview program in 2006 he was told that the audience would never listen for all that time, but he knew audiences craved a deep and immersive experience.Exploring the craft skills that have made the program/podcast successful Fidler answered questions about his most memorable interviews, his preparation and the narrative arc of the program.What’s one of your favourite interviews?Australian Jill Hicks, was travelling to work in the London Underground when a bomb went off just metres away. She described the bomb exploding as being like a short intake of breath and that she had no idea what had just happened. The scarf she’d tied around her neck earlier, became the tourniquet Jill used to stem the bleeding from her torn legs.“Jill told her story so powerfully that I had no idea the ABC news theme kicked in,” said Richard. “Our audience responds to everyday people because listeners can measure their own lives against them.”Do you need to know how to craft a story to tell the story?Richard and his producer prepare long detailed pre-interviews for each guest.He has a narrative arc in mind for each story. In an interview a listener can go where they like, but after his research Richard is confident he can steer the interview.“Don’t talk over your guests and let people talk,” said Richard. He spoke about interviewing Angela Lansberry ,who Richard realised had never been given the opportunity to speak uninterrupted so no interviewer had unlocked the rich detail of her work and her life. His Conversation with her corrected this and found her stories fascinating.“Always prepare carefully and let subjects talk,” advised Richard.Richard can “hear the sound of people listening” when he leaves room for silence in interviews. This allows the guest time to think and the audience to dwell more deeply on what they’ve heard.What is the structure of the program?A dreamy musical beginning leads to a story introduction, which signals the end of the audience’s mind chatter from all that they heard earlier in the day and allows them to escape into someone else’s life. He usually ends with a reflective point about what the guest has learnt. The listener then comes back into their own lives when the program ends.How is making live radio different from making podcasts? The program began in 2005 and has grown to a 70 million audience. “We’ve been making a podcast that is broadcast for years,” he saidMy model is “me, the guest and the listener.” We interview the guest in a nondescript studio so that we do everything we can to help them feel comfortable.“As the interviewer, I believe it’s important to drop the mask of omniscience…You can then open up your interview to surprise and shock… don’t be afraid not to know everything about your subject,” said Richard.Why? and Really? Are two of the best questions to ask. When answering, people often blurt out the truth because don’t have time to make up a prepared answer.“This model of program can be done anywhere in the world, interviewing every day people and telling their powerful story. For it to be successful the interviewer needs to engage their authentic curiosity, this is the motor of your interview. Authentic curiosity is essential for any interview,” ended Richard. […]

“In times of huge global news, natural disasters, as well as national or local community stories, radio can accurately reflect what is happening. “Just as importantly, audio can celebrate culture, entertainment and music and give the sense of belonging to the listener,” said Malaysia’s Deputy Minister for Communications and Digital, Nie Ching Teo at the official opening of the 2023 Radiodays Asia conference in Kuala Lumpur.“Radio is important… it is considered a trustworthy source to keep audiences informed and to counter mis-information,” she said.After decades of adapting and changing, the minister recognised that “even though radio has been around for years, it is not an old medium, it has stayed current.” It is on all types of digital platforms, is direct, immediate and a forum for music and conversations.“With the rise in podcasting we see a younger audience being attracted to audio with some becoming podcasters themselves.”Minister Teo described radio as “a vibrant media industry, looking ahead to meet audience expectations and develop its future business models.”The opening session was introduced by Steve Ahern, from ABC Australia, and Ryan Matjeraie, presenter at Fly FM Kuala Lumpur.Radiodays founder Anders Held said, “Radio Asia 2023 wants to shape our audio industry to provide a platform to share ideas to help industry to stay relevant and develop… We’re bringing professionals together in this international meeting place in Asia Pacific we hope everyone finds this useful, inspiring and fun.”Olya Booyar, Head of Radio at the Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union said, “The ABU is proud to be combine our resources with Radiodays. Our special strength is that we are the biggest broadcasting union with huge diversity… we have helped bring people together to face the greatest challenges in the industry… Audio choice is staggering and will continue to grow, generations to come will wonder how we managed content in a changing media climate… we are inventing the future now.”Speaking about the transformation of radio, Astro CEO Kenny Ong gave his perspectives on the importance of radio and its brands and how to grow your audience in a competitive media market, urging radio businesses to think beyond their format to what the audience is really looking for. “People don’t buy things for the most obvious reason, they buy it for other reasons prestige, peer pressure. it has nothing to do with the content and the features of the product.” Astro is one of Malaysia’s media companies working hard to invent the future by trying many things and thinking strategically about the business. “Radio’s survival is reliant on a saviour that may not yet be here, so we need hold the fort as best as we can, until the day comes but this may not be in the form we expect.”

Pamela Cook, the Head of Planning and Delivery at SBS Australia gave delegates insights into how SBS has had a makeover from radio to audio and how it is finding clever ways to visualize audio and use podcasts. […]